20/06/2024

A disused industrial site is redeveloped to produce free solar power

In the province of Lecce, EPC Elettronica Italia has created a photovoltaic system using bifacial photovoltaic modules connected to 20 KOSTAL PIKO CI 50 kW inverters. All of the energy produced is put into the grid and sold.

The real challenge: developing a system on a disused site.

A company specialised in researching sites, and designing and developing photovoltaic systems, acquired a site in the province of Lecce containing an industrial warehouse that was once an old tobacco processing plant.

The large size of the former factory's roof provided a surface area of approximately 9,000 square metres, with optimal exposure to the sun and no shaded areas. Puglia is one of the regions of Southern Italy that record some of the highest irradiation rates per square metre across the whole of the Italian peninsula.

After carrying out a series of design calculations, the company was able to develop the installation of a photovoltaic system with a power equal to 1 MWp.

A local company specialised in photovoltaics, Elettronica Italia Service, was involved in implementing the system. Financing for the project, which cost several hundreds of thousands of euros, was obtained through incentives provided by a previous Italian decree, enacted by Italian legislation, on renewable energy sources (FER).

KOSTAL inverters: a winning technical choice

The specialist EPC company invested in acquiring the former factory for the sole purpose of installing the photovoltaic system. Therefore, selecting the most reliable partners was essential, both from a technical perspective and in terms of securing product guarantees.

Using KOSTAL inverters when creating a photovoltaic system allows the owner to benefit from the many advantages of the system itself. KOSTAL inverters are highly efficient and ensure the best possible yield from the photovoltaic system. Depending on the individual circumstances, they also maximise the sale or self-consumption of the electrical energy that is generated, effectively reducing operating and production costs over the long term.

The inverter is at the heart of every photovoltaic system. Inverters in KOSTAL’s PIKO CI series, designed specifically for commercial and industrial installations, offer optimal conversion of the electrical photovoltaic energy generated by the modules into alternating current.
Companies that have invested in a photovoltaic system can count on stable remuneration, as in this case: all of the energy produced, which has been estimated at around 1.41 GWh per year, is put into the grid and transferred in its entirety to the trader who has signed a sales contract with the company.

Full, optimised sunshine

To implement the system, an ad hoc triangular support structure was created with an incline of 20°, to obtain the best tilt for the 540 W bifacial modules, combined with 20 KOSTAL PIKO CI 50 kW inverters.
"The bifacial modules required inverters that were able to manage very high currents", explains Paolo Melandri, Field Marketing Engineer at KOSTAL. "One of the special things about KOSTAL inverters is that they can support currents of up to 18 A, making them suitable for this type of system. Furthermore, the type of devices used also enabled optimum configuration of the strings.”

The Puglia system was one of the first photovoltaic systems implemented in Italy that involved the installation of such a large number of PIKO CI inverters.
“For us, it was a field test for our inverters’ design flexibility, as they are rarely used in such large numbers for installations with such a high level of power”, adds Riccardo Frassanito, Service Manager at KOSTAL, “and it also confirmed our products’ ability to easily manage data transfer and interoperability between the various devices, guaranteeing efficient monitoring, even with such a large number of devices installed.”